Bowers, Leonard

ORAL HISTORY OF LEONARD BOWERS
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
December 9, 2012
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is December the 9th, 2012. And I am at the home of Leonard Bowers in Knoxville, and I understand today is your 83rd birthday.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Happy birthday.
MR. BOWERS: Thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: I know you're an old, old creature, so let's start the beginning. Why don't you tell me where you were born and raised and your family?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I was born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and we left Tellico soon after Pearl Harbor was attacked. We moved to Madisonville where I entered the eighth grade. I started driving an automobile at the very young age of ten. In fact, I learned to drive a ton-and-a-half Dodge dump truck.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. And I remember when I was in the sixth grade at Tellico, my teacher was Miss Marynell Lee. Daddy and I were parked at the drug store, and Marynell had been to the post office and she was coming back to the drug store, and she, of course, knew my Daddy. My Daddy was a pitcher in baseball. He was a semi-pro pitcher. Marynell walked by and she looks at my dad, (which I am Leonard Bowers, Jr.), and she says, "Leonard, Junior's sitting under that wheel like he drives this car." And Daddy looked at her and he says, "Well, Marynell, he drove it up here." [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: Marynell said, "He what?" Well, that was when I was in the sixth grade.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: My life at Tellico was very good. My formative years --
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your dad do?
MR. BOWERS: My dad, at one time worked for the school at Tellico, also he worked for the forest service, and that was when the CCC camps came to Tellico. That would have been 1936. I can remember the roads became impassable, and we couldn't get to town. Johnny Squires, the Ranger, and his wife Ann, from Athens, Tennessee, lived in the quarters that were provided for them by the CCC’s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now tell me about the CCC camp. What was that?
MR. BOWERS: Well, the CCC camp was a government unit that provided jobs for people. This was during the Depression, and so this got the people “off of the streets”. They were standing on street corners, hoping for work. The government employed them to set out trees in Cherokee National Forest.
MR. MCDANIEL: And it was the Civilian Conservation Corp.
MR. BOWERS: It was CCC, Civil Conservation Corp. My brother, my sister, and I were the only kids that lived at the CCC camp.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. BOWERS: When the CCC’s came in there were recreation rooms, two barracks, and a mess hall. And what they'd do, they would go out and replace the trees that were cut down during the timber time.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you said this was 1936?
MR. BOWERS: That was 1936. And the reason I can recall it being 1936, I remember being in the second grade and would have to go to the blackboard, and I had to write the date down. Well, I knew it was in the 1900s, and when I wrote the one and I started with the nine, I said to myself, is it a nine or a six. Which way do you make it? As I stood there, finally the teacher, straightened me out. Niva, my teacher, by the way, married a CCC man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Virgil Chumney was an officer in the CCC. When they came in to the CCC camp, they were paid $30.00 a month plus room and board and clothing. That was the pay. I believe it was $30.00.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, so you lived at the CCC camp.
MR. BOWERS: I lived there. We were the only children. My Daddy worked directly for the Ranger, and my mother ran the switchboard some. The people that “manned” the towers would report fires and they would call the firemen out to battle the fire. It was very interesting growing up there. I watched them build the Ranger's house. While they were building it, we lived in three or four different places in the camp. In fact, where the administrative office was, we also lived in it. And then they moved us to another building that they moved out of. And then they built us a house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? Let me ask you a question.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you stay there until high school, or did you move to Oak Ridge from there?
MR. BOWERS: No, we stayed there until the CCC camp, when they came in, the men, they were marching, and my sister and I, we were sitting on the steps which were the Administrative Building, which that was our new house. And we could look out and you could see the snakes crawling out of the walls. When they came by our house, they were marching, marched them from Tellico, which is five miles. And they were singing, "When the Saints Go Marching In," and they came up there and they set them up and they gave them the barracks. They all had food. The CCC’s got people off of the streets that were starving.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: So that was the way life was then. A taxi would come to the CCC camp and take us to Tellico to school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And there were three families that lived up there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's get you to Oak Ridge. When did you move to Oak Ridge?
MR. BOWERS: First, we moved to Madisonville. I delivered papers. I knew everybody in town. I knew everybody in town in Tellico, also. It was a good town to grow up in. At the age of 11, I remember Pearl Harbor. We had blackouts, and scrap iron drives, and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how old were you in '41? How old were you --?
MR. BOWERS: In ‘41, I would have been 11 years old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So you were 11 when Pearl Harbor happened.
MR. BOWERS: Right. And it was some time after we moved to Madisonville. In fact, I drove when I was ten. When we lived at Tellico, during the Depression days, my mother operated the switchboard for the town of Tellico.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's get you to Oak Ridge. Let's move on to Oak Ridge.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did you move to Oak Ridge?
MR. BOWERS: We moved to Madisonville, we stayed there two years and we will get to Oak Ridge right now.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BOWERS: When we lived in Madisonville and I became 14 years old, I worked at the service station, and I also drove a taxi, and on one occasion I drove the police car in an emergency.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: So when I was there working at Monroe Service Station and the Hollywood Theaters across the street, I was so small that I would go up to get my ticket at the theater, and the cashier, Carolee Sloan, would give me a child's ticket. My first association with Oak Ridge was when a customer at the Service Station was wearing a Y-12 badge. I found out that he was an electrician in Oak Ridge. That was my first knowledge of Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now when was this? Was it when they were building Oak Ridge?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. But at that same time there was a train wreck in Jellico, Tennessee, a real bad train wreck. So this was on a Sunday. Two of my buddies, they were 16, and me were going to go see the train wreck. Well, what we did, they didn't know where they were going. I'm just a little squirt, and I just listened to the 16 year old’s, what they had to say. So we end up in Kingston, Tennessee. And we tried to find out where the train wreck was. Well, it was getting sort of late, and we were told how far it was, so we went back to Madisonville. But on the way back to Madisonville, there was a road which was Gallaher Road. And the two boys were talking, saying, "Now this place, Oak Ridge, now they've got the money." And one said, "They'll hire you if you're 16 years old. You can make $35.00 a week just being a messenger." Well, this was my second association with Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Daddy went to Oak Ridge to get a job. He had worked TVA the previous years at Appalachia Dam, Fort Loudon Dam, and Fontana Dam.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that? What year did he come to --?
MR. BOWERS: This would have been in 1943. Daddy was working at Fontana Dam. He quit and went to Oak Ridge. In fact, we spent Christmas in Fontana just before he went to Oak Ridge. Excuse me just a second to refresh my memory on dates.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.
MR. BOWERS: Daddy had an offer to go to Y-12 or K-25. Daddy and Mother stood at the central portal at Y-12, debating which company to go with. Now K-25 was operated by Union Carbide Company, and Y-12 was Tennessee Eastman. And so they debated and debated. Finally, Daddy said, "I think I'll go with Carbide." So then we were going to leave Madisonville and move to Oak Ridge. At the time, Daddy said, "Well, we're going to Oak Ridge," I was a sophomore in high school and my sister was a senior at Madisonville. We left my sister, Helen, to live with a friend in Madisonville for her to --
MR. MCDANIEL: Finish school.
MR. BOWERS: -- for her senior year. Well, we loaded up our belongings in our truck, and we traveled to Gallaher Road, where the entrance gate was at the Clinch River. I have never seen so much traffic, in and out, open trunks, opening people's cars, checking them out. And I thought, "Where in the world are we? What's going on?" We pulled up to a stop and Daddy gets out. Here I am, I just turned 14 years old, and the guard tells Daddy, "You can't go through here." These were Army soldiers manning the gates. Army 45’s on their side. So Daddy said, "Well, what do I do?" "You gotta go back down to Highway 70, and you got to go up to Farragut, and you gotta go across to Solway Bridge, and go through Solway Gate." And Daddy said, "Well, how far is that?" And the guard said, "About 50 miles." And that was back when gas was rationed, and Daddy told him, "Well, I don't have gas to go back that far." And so the guard said, "Well, I'll be back in a few minutes." Well, we sat and waited, my mother, my dad, and my brother. Finally, the guard came back and he said, "Well, we can take you. Okay."
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BOWERS: Here comes a military Jeep and a soldier gets out with a 45 on his side, and he said, "I want you to follow me."
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BOWERS: And so we go across the bridge, Gallaher Bridge. Now it's not far from there that you can see K-25.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: We didn't see K-25.
MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't?
MR. BOWERS: No. We go to the first turn and turn right, and he takes us around some -- I don't know what the route was. Had no idea where we were. We had a military escort. We came out on the Oak Ridge Turnpike which I don't know if you're familiar with Oak Ridge. It was Louisiana Avenue and the Oak Ridge Turnpike where a cafeteria and dormitories were located.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, of course.
MR. BOWERS: The cafeteria was where all the people living in the dormitories would go for their meals.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's on the corner of Louisiana and the Turnpike.
MR. BOWERS: Right. So then we go on and we go to a double trailer in Midtown Trailer Court, and where in the world are we? Never seen so much traffic. We go on to the trailer and we unload our truck, all our belongings. Tired, we go to sleep. Well, the next morning, I heard bulldozers going. I heard alarms. I heard police cars. I could hear alarms in Y-12 going off, and I thought, "Where in the world are we? What's going on?”
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BOWERS: So we had the double trailer to live in, and we had a community bathhouse. They had a man stationed in this bathhouse, as his job. I don't know how many days a week, but he was from down in Georgia, and he took care of the bathhouse.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, where was this?
MR. BOWERS: This was Midtown.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, Midtown, right in the middle of town.
MR. BOWERS: This today is where the Downtown Area, the Science Building, and the police station are. All this located area was trailers back in those days. Daddy said, “We're going to go to the cafeteria.” Well, there's a cafeteria in the trailer court, and in Oak Ridge, there were 75,000 people had moved into Oak Ridge overnight. 150,000 people working there. So we go down to the cafeteria, and we go in. A line of people waiting to be served. I was the first one in our family, and my brother, who was two years younger than me; he was the second one, followed by my mother, and then my Daddy. Well, there was a man in front of me at the cafeteria. All of a sudden, here's a man in street clothes, taps that man on the shoulder and pulls him out of the cafeteria line. And he said, "Where is your badge?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. BOWERS: And that man pulls a Prince Albert smoking tobacco can out, and he opens the can lid and he reaches in and pulls a handkerchief out, and he unfolds the handkerchief, and there was his badge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And the plain-clothes man, said, "You wear this at all times, everywhere you go." He said, "Yes, sir," and he stepped back in line, and we continued to go through the line.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now did you have your badge yet?
MR. BOWERS: Pardon?
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have your badge yet?
MR. BOWERS: No. We had a temporary “pass”. We had to go to Badge and Pass Office. There was one in Midtown, and also one uptown at Townsite. Our badge had our picture on it, with age, height, and eye color on the back of the badge. My badge number, by the way, was 12789.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: We wore our badges that to school, everywhere you went, or you would be picked up by the guards. When we got up that morning, the first morning, there was Mr. Roy Rolands. He was the area supervisor at K-25, and he was there to greet us and see if we needed anything and told my Daddy, he said, "Now, I live over on Peach Road, right off Pennsylvania Avenue. You call me if you need anything." We met our neighbors. I remember the family that was next door. They were the Words. They were from Houston, Texas. And they had just moved in, too. They had two sons and a daughter, and one of them went to Oak Ridge High School. The other one was in junior high, and the little girl, I don't remember how old she was. The question was, when they got to talking, they were from Houston, and their neighbor was a movie star.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: In later life. His name was John Payne. I don't know if you remember him or not. He was a leading --
MR. MCDANIEL: No.
MR. BOWERS: -- in the movies back in the younger days. And, in fact, he used to baby-sit for them when he was a teenager, and before he went to California. I went to Oak Ridge High School enroll. However, I didn't have to enroll in Oak Ridge High School at that time because I had a week or two weeks off before they started the new semester at Oak Ridge High School.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Sure.
MR. BOWERS: So it was so interesting to go into Oak Ridge High School. Everybody had badges. No one knew what your Daddy was doing. And I remember I was a sophomore. The rooms were crowded. In fact, they didn't have a desk for us.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: No. Dorothy Jean Waldrop, was our teacher, and what they did, they put four chairs at a table for the students. And the four that set at the table was J.C. Parker, William Sturgel, and Harold Cornett. And let's say. There was one other. I don't recall his name right now. But the next thing, this was 1945. When they dropped the atomic bomb, I remember we lived at 246 Robertsville Road.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you a question. Let me stop you right there --
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- and ask you a question. So you went there in the winter of '43 or '44?
MR. BOWERS: '44.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So you were there for a year and a half before the bomb was dropped.
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. And you were in high school during that time.
MR. BOWERS: I was sophomore in high school when we moved to Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So you were a sophomore and junior. What was it like living there before you really knew what was going on?
MR. BOWERS: Well, it was just everywhere you went, you would see the signs, "What you see here, what you do here, when leave here, let it stay here. Be security-wise. Don't breathe." [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: But there were a lot of people, a lot of kids, a lot of students, so there were lots of recreational activities.
MR. BOWERS: Yes. All the roads in Oak Ridge were named after a State followed by a number. From the bus situation, buses were going everywhere, and I can still recall, I could tell you what number bus to get on if you wanted to go to New York Avenue. Number 1 was New York/Pennsylvania, and 2 was Florida/Michigan, and 3 was East Drive, and number 4 was Jefferson to Townsite that Central turned on, and then number 5 was Delaware and number 6 was Grove Center and number 7 California, number 8 was --
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. But you got on the bus and you all went all over town, didn't you?
MR. BOWERS: Well, yes, you see, in the beginning of Oak Ridge, the bus service was free, and then they started selling tokens and you could buy 5 for 30-cents. Most of the Oak Ridgers had experienced the Depression. Therefore, no one had money and everybody was in the same boat. We saw “stuff” coming into Oak Ridge and nothing going out.
MR. MCDANIEL: But what were some of the recreational activities that you did while you were in the --?
MR. BOWERS: Well, we had what was called the Wildcat Den. Shep Lauder was one of the originals, and Carl “Rabbit” Yearwood were both recreation people. And we had where the Wildcat Den is now; I guess y'all know where it is.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.
MR. BOWERS: But it was in two different places. At first, it was at the Uptown Site, known as Jackson Square. But then it moved -- the big cafeteria in Townsite folded up. The south end of the cafeteria they made the Wildcat Den, and the remaining part of the cafeteria building became Harvey's Furniture Store. Harvey was our Sunday School superintendent at the First Baptist Church.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: I knew Tom Harvey. He started out in the commercial area at Oak Ridge, and it was called XYZ in the beginning. There, they had the radio shop and you had O'Neil Dry Cleaners, and you had a delicatessen, and Spears Electric.
MR. MCDANIEL: But that was later on. That was later on.
MR. BOWERS: Well, my mother worked for Spears Electric.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, but I mean --
MR. BOWERS: She got a job the first --
MR. MCDANIEL: But that was after the war was over.
MR. BOWERS: No, this was during the war.
MR. MCDANIEL: During the war.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: My mother went to work the first month we were here and she was manager of Oak Ridge Radio Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. And there were five owners of the store, and they all worked in the plants. So what happened, my mother would be there to take the radios in to be repaired and she'd make the tickets and then when the owners came in at night, some of them worked different shifts, would do repairs on the radios. And so --
MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do activity-wise? Did you bowl? You mentioned something earlier about your first job was setting pins at the bowling alley.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, yes. In the very beginning when we --
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. BOWERS: -- we moved into the trailer court, I went down and -- this is something that I don't think there's too much known about, and I've never read it in any of the books or anything, but at Midtown, we had a theater. We had a barbershop. We had a supermarket. The Hamilton National Bank was there, one gas station. We had a bowling alley and a dance hall.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And I started setting pins there, and my brother, he did likewise. So what we would do, it's the old-fashioned pinsetters, where you'd manually set the pins. Never did get hit by any of the pins, but some of the bowlers could really throw a bowling ball. Well, anyway, between the bowling alley and the dance hall was a concession stand. And so what we would do, working there at the bowling alley, we'd go there and you'd have Cokes and everything there. And then they had the dance hall and the beer tavern and all that. So I remember once I left setting pins and didn't have a customer at that time. And so I go to get me a Coke, and I heard the noise going on, and I thought, "What in the world is happening?" Well, all of a sudden, there were soldiers. There were policemen. There were guards, and plain-clothes men. They were arresting a man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And what it was, someone had started to fight, and I remember he wanted to fight one of the soldiers, and let me tell you, he surrendered in a hurry.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'll bet he did.
MR. BOWERS: And back then, we didn't have a jail in Oak Ridge, and what they'd do, you'd have to take them to Clinton. And so they arrested him, put him in the car, and I remember what he had to say to that officer.
MR. MCDANIEL: What'd he say?
MR. BOWERS: Well, "You got the best of me."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: And the guard, he said, "I've only hit you one time." So that was the way the security was. We moved to Robertsville Road --
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, tell me about now when did you move out of the trailer park?
MR. BOWERS: Moved out of the trailer park 30 days later. In fact, I have a letter --
MR. MCDANIEL: 30 days later than what?
MR. BOWERS: We moved into the duplex at 246 Robertsville Road.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So how long were you at the trailer park?
MR. BOWERS: 30 days.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, you were just there 30 days.
MR. BOWERS: 30 days. But I have a letter right there, that's date January 1945, and it's a letter that my mother had written. And we were -- my mother said, "Well, we're now fifth on the list to get a house."
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: She said, "We were 17th on the list." So we moved to Robertsville Road. Back then, security was so tight, there was a police officer within one minute of your house 24 hours a day. Across the street from us was Robertsville School. Robertsville School was also used as a recreation gym. In fact, I would go over to the gym and play basketball. Let me tell you, you talk about athletes. They had the tops in the United States.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: These athletes, some of them, for example, were people who came to Oak Ridge for employment and they had jobs that allowed them to be exempt from the draft. We had chemists and all crafts. That's where Jack Case, who later became the Y-12 plant manager, became popular. You probably have read the story about “Jack Case”.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
MR. BOWERS: He came to Oak Ridge as a civilian. I played ball with Jack back in those days. I worked in just about every building at Y-12. The original Robertsville School was the gym, we played in. I took up with Carbide/K-25 team, and they would call me their mascot. Anyway, I was at all the games, and I would keep score. Mr. Hesler was head of recreation then, and he would run the time clock and I would help him.
MR. MCDANIEL: But every shift just about had a team, didn't they?
MR. BOWERS: They all had a team. Y-12 had one, and it was called Tennessee Eastman Carbide. We had Stone and Webster and Roane Anderson. And let me tell you, if you were a good ballplayer, they had a job for you.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet they did.
MR. BOWERS: So some of those players were -- well, for example, I don't know if y'all knew Mr. Joe Dykstra.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah.
MR. BOWERS: Joe was 6'9-1/2" tall Y-12, Tennessee Eastman was Albay Eddy. He was 6'9". And Roland Murphy, he was from Syracuse University, and Ray Catastke, he was from a university in North Carolina.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it Duke?
MR. BOWERS: No, it wasn't Duke.
MR. MCDANIEL: Chapel Hill?
MR. BOWERS: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. That's all right.
MR. BOWERS: Well, anyway, I'll think of it in a little while.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BOWERS: I still remember, Big Joe Dykstra, his number was Number 7, and Roland Murphy was 21, and we had one of them, you probably heard of, Arkie Bond. He played for the Army Cardinals.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: That was the military team. And Arkie was one of the best athletes that ever hit Oak Ridge, he and Elmo Wolf.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you're saying if you were a good athlete and you wanted a job at Oak Ridge, they'd find you a job.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, let me tell you. They all knew me. I don't know why I -- I just came in contact with all the guys. And the personnel manager said, "Hey, Bowers, you're here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee," he said, "You grew up here in Tennessee. Do you know any baseball pitchers?" And they said, "Got a job for 'em if you do." Well, one case, I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, and we were playing a Knoxville team. And like I said, I was on the bench. I took care of the bats. I was batboy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Or baseball? You were playing baseball at this time, baseball?
MR. BOWERS: This is baseball, yeah. I was in baseball and basketball. Went with them on all their trips. So this pitcher for Knoxville goes out to get a drink of water. This guy followed him out. And spoke to him and he said something to him. I guess he knew the man, and he said, "What are you doing now?" and he said, "Well, I'm not doing anything. I'm looking for a job." He said, "If you got a job, would you pitch for us?" and he said, "Yeah, I would." He said, "Well, be out at Elza Gate Monday morning.”
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. I've never heard that story before. It makes a lot of sense.
MR. BOWERS: He went to work on the payroll Monday morning for Roane-Anderson.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And he played with Roane-Anderson. By the way, one of them I left out was Arkie Vaughn.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, you mentioned him.
MR. BOWERS: I mentioned Arkie? Arkie was defensive end for the Oklahoma Sooners.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. BOWERS: Now that's what a great athlete he was. And Arkie, also had a degree in chemistry.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, and he worked at X-10. But the K-25 team had the Army guys. There was Chuck Norton, and others. The Oak Ridge Manhattan Project always had money for recreation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now about when was this? Was this during the war, or after the war?
MR. BOWERS: This was during the war.
MR. MCDANIEL: During the war, okay.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. They dropped the bomb in '45, and I remember when I went home and people started running out of their houses and said, "We know what we've been making now." And it had been hush-hush all that time. Let me get back to the security, for example. The people that had lived next door to us, moved out, and when we moved in, we had a 50-foot water hose, and it was there in our yard. I was at Oak Ridge High School, and I went home this particular day, and I was going to wash the car. Well, I didn't see the water hose, and I thought, "Well, maybe Daddy let somebody borrow it or something." When Daddy got home, I said, "Daddy, do you know where our water hose is?" and he said, "Well, it's back there in the backyard, isn't it?" And I said, "Well, I can't find it." We went out there, no water hose. So I said, "Well, what are you gonna do?" and Daddy says, "Well, I don't know." And I said, "Well, I know what I'd do." I said, "I'd notify the police department."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: So Daddy, that's what he did. The policeman came to our house, took the information and all, and I thought, "We’ll never see our water hose." And about eight to ten days later, here comes the police officer to our house, and he said, "I know where your water hose is."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: He said, "One of the inspectors took your water hose that came to inspect the house next door." And said, he had taken a week's vacation in Gatlinburg and they had tracked him down and he had our water hose in the trunk of his car.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And he told my dad, he says, "Now here's his name, and you can prosecute him." And he said, "Your hose is up at the police station."
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I think that guy lost his job, didn't he?
MR. BOWERS: Then, I knew Security was everywhere in Oak Ridge, and it was something that we lived with. But it was a pleasure to grow up in Oak Ridge, and the people we met were highly educated people. Many had to move out on a short notice if they lost their job. But I remember one family couldn't move out, they lived down near K-25, because the law says you can't move a pregnant woman, and she was almost ready to have a baby.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: When it was time for her to deliver, the military came to her house and escorted her to Harriman Hospital.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And then they had to move out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, okay, so you graduated Oak Ridge High School.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir, I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I was the Class of '47, but I started working at the Grove Theater back when I was 16 years old. Really, when I applied for the job and they were going to hire me. I went to Recreation and Welfare, filled out my application, and they were going to hire me. Then I was told they weren't going to hire me. The lady said, "But you're not 16 years old. We can't hire you." I said, "But I am 16 years old." And so she put my birth date down again, and she said, "Well, yeah, you're 16 years old." She said, "Come on back up here." So I go back up there and I was supposed to be going to the Jefferson Theater to work, but since I didn't go down there, she said, "I'm gonna send you down to the Grove Theater." She said, "I think you'll like that."
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do there?
MR. BOWERS: I was a doorman, and, in fact, you can see the picture that I have when I was at the theater. I don't know if you've seen that or not. My wife -- I'm going to just break in just a second and she'll show you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. That'll be fine.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's not you in The Beginning of the End picture?
MR. BOWERS: That's me. I'm the doorman.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is it really?
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I've used that picture lots of times.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, I could tell you --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's him. Sure it is. [Laughs] So you worked at the Grove.
MR. BOWERS: I worked at the Grove, and I made 40 cents an hour, that's $16.00 a week, and Uncle Ed, who was the manager made $70.00 a week.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: I thought, "Man, that man is rich." [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: So you graduated high school.
MR. BOWERS: I graduated high school in '47. Now, I'd like to tell you something about the graduation.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. Yeah, take a minute or two to tell me about that.
MR. BOWERS: Okay. You want me to take a break?
MR. MCDANIEL: No, no. We're fine. Go ahead.
MR. BOWERS: Okay. Well, First Baptist Church met at the high school. And that's where we had our services all the time. And but when we had our baccalaureate sermon, they told the church that they had to have the auditorium. So what they did, I didn't know this at the time. Anyway, we go to the baccalaureate sermon, and this is a little embarrassing to me what happened, and it's something that was very embarrassing. And we had just got through with the baccalaureate sermon, and here we got that they were about to in the senior class, I don't know, there was a couple a hundred of us that just came out of the building. So we go down the halls at Oak Ridge High School, and we go down there. There was three or four of us, and we just went in there where the gym was, and at the baccalaureate sermon, they had done the music and one of the songs was, "My God and I." And so what we do, we go down there and we just opened the door there at the gym and we go in and we're sing, "My God and I," and what's going on? The First Baptist Church is having their Sunday night service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And the preacher was preaching. And we go, "Oh." And so we bailed out. But no one told us that the church was there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Funny.
MR. BOWERS: That was where WATO radio station first started. We met in the auditorium at the Oak Ridge High School. And Theron Adkins. I don't know if you knew him or not. He also started his career at WATO and Ted Lehmann and others.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's stop for a second. I want to fix something.
[Technical background talk from 0:49:07 to 0:49:45]
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Go ahead.
MR. BOWERS: When we officially opened the gates, we had Jack Bailey as a guest. He had the radio show which was Queen for a Day.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now you're talking about the day they opened the gates.
MR. BOWERS: The day we opened the gates.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was it? March, April 1949.
MR. BOWERS: '49, yes. And we had Rod Cameron as a guest, who was a movie star, and Jack Bailey, and we had the beauty queen, Marie McDonald. She was in the parade along with Bailey and Cameron, and there was a man by the name of Jimmy Burns. I knew him, and they hired him to be the chauffer for Marie.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir. So we have the celebration there at the Grove Theater, packed house. And so Marie came on stage. Of course, she got a big welcoming and then Jack Bailey was on. Then the last one on stage was Rod Cameron. Well, the first two, had already gone out the back door at the Grove Theater, and they got out of the crowd. Rod Cameron was the last on stage. Before Rod could get out and get in the getaway car, the crowd got out there --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: -- when he came out the stage door. And I remember, and I'm standing there and there Rod was. Some old boy wanted to fight him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And his girlfriend was there and I never will forget what Rod said to him. He said, "Well, I've been whipped by smaller men than you." [Laughs] And the man's girlfriend that was there, she said, "Act your age."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: She jumped onto him.
MR. MCDANIEL: How funny. That's funny.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. So you graduated high school.
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And then what did you do? Did you go to college? Did you go to work?
MR. BOWERS: I went to UT. When I went to UT, of course, I was staying at home, and I was in a carpool. There were five of us. I came out of UT one day, my brother-in-law and I, he became an engineer at Y-12, decided we would hitchhike to Oak Ridge. Along came this man -- well, he was a student at UT. He had another man with him that lived in Powell, Tennessee. We got to talking and he said, yeah, he drove over to UT every day and said, "Y'all are welcome. I'll pick you up, take you to school." His first name was Paul. I won't call his last name. His daddy's a big shot in X-10. And so, well, this was an almost-new DeSoto that he was driving. Our carpool now had two girls and three males. So back then, you had to have a badge to get out of Oak Ridge. So occasionally, one of the girls would forget her badge. So what we'd have to do, we'd let her out. She'd have to go to the guard headquarters that's there at the gate. And we'd just leave her.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: We didn't have time to wait because we would miss our first class, if we didn't go on. She'd have to catch a bus and come in late. Well, then Paul comes to my house, and I mean, we were raised in poverty back in those days. And he shows up at my house, in a brand new Lincoln, electric windows, “fully loaded”.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Three heaters, and that's what we drove to school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. And here I was just a poor boy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Just barely making it.
MR. BOWERS: And Paul was, man, he was -- his Daddy, financially, they were well off. They would call me Junior, and he'd say, "Hey, Junior. Have you got any spare time over at UT?" He said, "Would you take my car and go up to Lincoln Britton Motor Company and have it serviced for me?" And I'd say, "Yeah." And here I am just a little teenager driving that big 12-cylinder Lincoln. And we'd park down at the drug store every morning and have coffee. But it was interesting as we grew up. I've worked with so many. In my time, I spent 12-1/2 years in Biology; I worked on the Breeder Reactor, for 5-1/2 years until the government took our funds away from us. Biology had big plans. But the Vietnam War came along and our funds were taken away. So the Y-12 plant began to change.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you worked at all three plants, didn't you? All three sites.
MR. BOWERS: Well, not really K-25. I was at K-29 that was next door.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. But you worked at that site.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, I did. K-31, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now what did you do? What did you get your degree in?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I didn't get a degree. I went to UT for one year. When I worked at K-29, I worked in the time office in Payroll. And back then, we were in the Depression, and people coming from everywhere to get a job. You had to have a pass to get down to the Personnel Office.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you worked at all three sites, and then you retired. When did you retire?
MR. BOWERS: I retired January 1st, 1995.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1995?
MR. BOWERS: '95, uh-huh.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now when you were living in Oak Ridge, when you were working in Oak Ridge, were you married? Where did you meet your wife?
MR. BOWERS: Well --
MR. MCDANIEL: And where did you live?
MR. BOWERS: You see, her family attended church at First Baptist Church, which was held at the high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And she was from Oak Ridge.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, uh-huh. And --
MR. MCDANIEL: As much as anybody. Nobody was “from” Oak Ridge, but she lived there.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, she and her family were from Florida. As I’ve stated, her brother and I used to hitchhike together and we were in a carpool together. So what happened, I'd go down to her brother’s house and study. She was quite a bit younger than me. Well, there's big difference in three or four years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: So when I came home from the Air Force four years later, she'd grown up.
MR. MCDANIEL: She'd grown up.
MR. BOWERS: So we started dating, and a year later, we got married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now you say when you came home four years later. Was that from --
MR. BOWERS: I was in the Air Force.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, yeah. When did you go in the Air Force?
MR. BOWERS: I went in the Air Force January 9th, 1950. Let's say -- '51.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And then you moved back in '55, or '50 --?
MR. BOWERS: When I came home, I got my job back at Y-12. But while I was in the Air Force, my seniority continued, and also my benefits that I was entitled to. They were good to me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, well, that's good.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went back and your friend's little sister had grown up.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And y'all got married.
MR. BOWERS: We got married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where'd you live when you first got married?
MR. BOWERS: We moved to Tacoma Road, 177 Tacoma Road. Reeder Chevrolet Company was just across the Oak Ridge Turnpike from us. And we lived close to where they used to give driver license tests, and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Oh, yeah. Well, let me go back. When we move to Oak Ridge, I was just 15, and I drove the truck. And I got stopped by the cops once, at Midtown. That was where the library is now. And that was back when two policemen rode in a car together. And so they pulled me over. You see, I told you I started driving when I was ten years old. And I was driving a taxi when I was 14. So this is during the war when everybody was going off to the service and all. And I could handle trucks, cars, or tractors, or what have you. And I'd grease cars and I would always hope somebody'd come along and want a taxi. And if there was any car washing to do or polishing or what have you. I wanted the job
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: Well, I made all of $6.00 a week. Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you got stopped.
MR. BOWERS: I got stopped there at Midtown, and he asked to see my driver's license. Well, I didn’t have a driver's license.
MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't have one.
MR. BOWERS: So the two policemen were talking and I said, "What did I do for you to pull me over?" And he says, "You didn't do anything wrong." He said, "You just look young to be driving." And he said, "Do you have any money with you?" And I said, "Yes, sir, I do." Well, first, one of the cops says, "Well, just let him take the car and go on back home." And the other policeman says, "Well, we can't let him go. He doesn't have a driver's license." So he said, "Well," he said, "just lock the car up here and take the keys with you, and just ride the bus back home and let your Daddy come back and get the car."
MR. MCDANIEL: Drive the car?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah so that's what my dad did.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your dad say?
MR. BOWERS: Well, he just went down there and got it.
MR. MCDANIEL: He just got it?
MR. BOWERS: But back then, I remember -- well, it seemed that I knew everybody in Oak Ridge. I knew a lot of the medical staff, I knew some of the people that ran the city, like Major Bonnet. You had to go “through” Major Bonnet. He was the man that said who got a concession in Oak Ridge. He's the one that told you it's time to go. By the way, concessions had to pay a percentage of their profits to the United States government.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. Anyway, this buddy of mine, he was older than me, and this was a Sunday afternoon, we decided that we wanted to go target practicing. So he and my brother and I get in the car, and we go out Oliver Springs Gate. We show our badge. So then, we go down to the foot of the hill, and there's another road. And so we drive down this road, and there was an old house dilapidated and deserted. Little wide place in the road. So we just pulled over, got out, and started target shooting.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: And the next thing I knew, there comes two security men, guards, with guns.
MR. MCDANIEL: With guns, right.
MR. BOWERS: Uniforms. I mean they were sharp. And I don't know if you know, but this is what the old country boys call it. I don't know if you ever heard the term or not, beggar lice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BOWERS: That sticks to your clothes and all.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course.
MR. BOWERS: Those two officers were covered. They had come through the briars and --
MR. MCDANIEL: And they were covered with beggar lice.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. So they told us that, "Didn't you see the signs?" "Well, what signs? We didn't see any signs out here." There wasn't any sign. And there was no sign saying it's government property. So, they take us down to the guard headquarters. Well, Glen was the oldest one of our group, and they call in a lieutenant, "Got these boys here." I wasn't scared. However, about, oh, I don't know 25 to 30 years later, this “Glen” I was telling you about?
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: Was visiting me here in this house and he was telling me about an episode that happened when he was at Oak Ridge High, and the guards -- he said, "They picked me up and the other two guys that was with me." He said, "I don't remember their names." And I said, "Well, right here's one of 'em, and my brother was the other." And he said, "Well, they took us down to the guard station and the officer came in and start talking." And he said, "You're the oldest. We're gonna hold you responsible."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. But I asked Glen, I said, "Glen?" And he said he was scared to death. And I said, "Well, did you notice I wasn't scared." He said, "Well," he said, "I was scared. I didn't know." And you know what I was going to do?
MR. MCDANIEL: What?
MR. BOWERS: I was going to call his boss. [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: He was head of the whole guard department.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness.
MR. BOWERS: I went to church with his boy, and we just had our Sunday night social at his house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: But they just said, well, we didn't do anything, and said, "Well, you boys just go on back home." He said, "Just tell your Daddy to come get the guns."
MR. MCDANIEL: Hey, let me ask you a question, and we're going to wrap this up here in a little bit.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Since that's you in that photograph, you're the --
MR. BOWERS: Doorman.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- the doorman at the Grove Theater. Can you tell me about that night that they had the premier of that movie, The Beginning of the End?
MR. BOWERS: Let's see now. Did I tell you about Rod Cameron?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes, you told me about that.
MR. BOWERS: And about the -- okay. That night --
MR. MCDANIEL: That wasn't the same night, was it?
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, it was?
MR. BOWERS: That was the night when we had the opening of the gates.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's when you had the opening of the gates. They had the premier of that film.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I didn't know that.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, that was on the marquee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly. So well, my goodness. Well, anything else you want to talk about? We need to kind of wrap things up here a little bit.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, well, there's some --.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there's a lot.
MR. BOWERS: -- some good times I had. I just experienced something in life that you never would dream. Oh, you talk about Oak Ridge High School. We'll get back to that. Back then, it was nothing but mud and boardwalks. And down where Robertsville Baptist Church is now, that used to be an old farmhouse, and they had a grassy yard. And Mr. Bond was the principal of Robertsville School at that time, Mr. Bond and I dug up the sod out of that old farmhouse, and I carried mine down to 246 Robertsville Road and we were the only house that had a green lawn.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: And Mr. Bond took his sod to his house. But, oh, let's see. Back to the theater.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's all right. That's fine. You've told some good stories here.
MR. BOWERS: I'll tell you one other thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, tell me one more story.
MR. BOWERS: Something I was proud to do. That was, take the polygraph test at work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. When did you --
MR. BOWERS: We did that during the war, and a lot of my co-workers would dread going to take that test.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did they do that?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I know I took it in 1951, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: At the plants, right.
MR. BOWERS: They --
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it just random, or was there a reason?
MR. BOWERS: No, everybody -- this was for security reasons. And when I had to go take the test, a lot of people didn't really want to do it, and I said, "Well, I'm glad to do that."
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: "Well, I think it's an honor that my country trusts me and I'm here for whatever security's supposed to be, and I'm for it." But I'd like to get back to my dad.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. Let's take just a minute. We don't have much time left.
MR. BOWERS: Okay. This pertains to K-25.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, sure.
MR. BOWERS: We came in, my buddy, and I -- and by the way, he was a photographer and he used to work -- did photographs, develop hundreds of rolls of film a day. Back then, there was only one photo finishing plant, and it was in Oak Ridge, and 75,000 people living here, and we picked up film in Clinton and Oliver Springs. Cameras were “outlawed” in Oak Ridge. I had came in this night and I parked my car -- my dad was asleep. And the next morning, my dad got up to go to work, and the car we drove in was sort of in his way, so he tried to turn his car around in the back of the yard. And when he did, he backed up and his tailpipe went into the earth.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And bent it all down and there he is, he's got to go to K-25. And he tried to straighten his tailpipe up so he could get to work, and he was about to run late. Do you know that was the day he was scheduled to take the polygraph test?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And Daddy went to take the polygraph test and the person that was giving it asked him, "Do you feel all right?" That machine went crazy!
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? He was all tore up.
MR. BOWERS: And she said, "Well, Mr. Bowers, you go to work," and she said, "You come back tomorrow." So he came back and he passed his test. But --
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's good. Well, Mr. Bowers, I appreciate you taking time to talk with us.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's been great. You've told some great stories, and it's a privilege to talk to somebody who was there at the very beginning and has such a good memory for the details of what happened back then. So I appreciate it so much. So thank you.
MR. BOWERS: Well, I've enjoyed reminiscing and bringing back old times and memories. And the people that I grew up with and associated with, it was a good life. Lot of us, we griped, and when you'd have to go get passes for people and all. But when it came time to open the gates, the people didn't want it to be open.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly. That said something about the town and the people that lived there.
MR. BOWERS: The town. Well, there's one Coach Martin, I may want to tell you.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. One more story. That's it. That's all we got time for.
MR. BOWERS: Coach Benny Martin --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sit back in your chair.
MR. BOWERS: -- he was the second coach of Oak Ridge. The first one, he just lasted just a few months, and he was drafted into the Army, and Coach Martin took over his job. Coach Martin was my first gym teacher --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: -- at Oak Ridge High School. Benny was a jewel. Benny was from the University of Kentucky. That's where we got the name of the Oak Ridge Wildcats.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. So Benny was also basketball coach, football coach, and back then the government funded the money for sports. They had money. Even they had boxing, which I didn't approve of. They outlawed that pretty quick. So Benny was the champion free-throw shooter in Oak Ridge for the two years that I was there with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And back then, they shot granny style.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. And I thought when I was there with old Big Joe Dykstra, and Joe would go out on the basketball court and he'd shoot it granny style. I'm just 15 years old, and I said, "That's not the way to shoot a basketball." And so Coach Martin, was there in the gym, and we were talking, and like I say, he was the champion Oak Ridge shooter in free throws. And I said, "Coach," I said, "That's not the proper way to shoot a basketball." 15 year old telling his coach.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: He said, "Well, Bowers, how do you think it should be shot?" I said, "Well, I think it should be shot like this." And he said, "Why do you say that?" I said, "Well, look. When you shot it like this, look how close you are to the rim." Now, back then UT shot granny style. University of Kentucky shot granny style.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And he said, "Well, no, this is the proper way to shoot it." And I said, "Well, get the basketball, Coach." He got one and I got one, and we were there shooting basketball. He'd shot his granny style, and I'd shoot mine like that. I said, "Coach, you shoot closer to the rim." I said, "When you shoot granny style, you gotta go down here and bring it up and loop it, and then come back down." And you know when we got through shooting what he told me?
MR. MCDANIEL: What'd he say?
MR. BOWERS: Don't change.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Well, that's great. That's a great story. That's a great story.
MR. BOWERS: But now did you ever know P.B. Smith?
MR. MCDANIEL: No, huh-uh.
MR. BOWERS: He was a coach there. He was an assistant coach under Coach Martin. John M. Smith was his name.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, I didn't know him.
MR. BOWERS: And we'd always meet in the coaches' office every morning. I always got there real early. I drove to school, by the way. And Mr. Smith was always in there and he was always talking about -- he was from Arkansas. And he would always talk about when he was at Pine Bluff, we did it this way and he'd do it that way. Well, this particular morning I go into the coach's office and I sit down. Mr. Smith wasn't there. I looked around at the guy sitting in there. They were football players and all, and I said, "Well where's P.B.?" And they said, "P.B.? Who's P.B.?" I said, "Pine Bluff Arkansas Smith." That’s how he got that name and in the annual and everything, it's listed, "John M. P.B. Smith."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? All right. Well, Mr. Bowers, I appreciate you taking time.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you so much.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s note: This transcript was edited at Mr. Bower’s request. The corresponding audio and video portions remain unchanged.]

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ORAL HISTORY OF LEONARD BOWERS
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
December 9, 2012
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is December the 9th, 2012. And I am at the home of Leonard Bowers in Knoxville, and I understand today is your 83rd birthday.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Happy birthday.
MR. BOWERS: Thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: I know you're an old, old creature, so let's start the beginning. Why don't you tell me where you were born and raised and your family?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I was born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and we left Tellico soon after Pearl Harbor was attacked. We moved to Madisonville where I entered the eighth grade. I started driving an automobile at the very young age of ten. In fact, I learned to drive a ton-and-a-half Dodge dump truck.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. And I remember when I was in the sixth grade at Tellico, my teacher was Miss Marynell Lee. Daddy and I were parked at the drug store, and Marynell had been to the post office and she was coming back to the drug store, and she, of course, knew my Daddy. My Daddy was a pitcher in baseball. He was a semi-pro pitcher. Marynell walked by and she looks at my dad, (which I am Leonard Bowers, Jr.), and she says, "Leonard, Junior's sitting under that wheel like he drives this car." And Daddy looked at her and he says, "Well, Marynell, he drove it up here." [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: Marynell said, "He what?" Well, that was when I was in the sixth grade.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: My life at Tellico was very good. My formative years --
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your dad do?
MR. BOWERS: My dad, at one time worked for the school at Tellico, also he worked for the forest service, and that was when the CCC camps came to Tellico. That would have been 1936. I can remember the roads became impassable, and we couldn't get to town. Johnny Squires, the Ranger, and his wife Ann, from Athens, Tennessee, lived in the quarters that were provided for them by the CCC’s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now tell me about the CCC camp. What was that?
MR. BOWERS: Well, the CCC camp was a government unit that provided jobs for people. This was during the Depression, and so this got the people “off of the streets”. They were standing on street corners, hoping for work. The government employed them to set out trees in Cherokee National Forest.
MR. MCDANIEL: And it was the Civilian Conservation Corp.
MR. BOWERS: It was CCC, Civil Conservation Corp. My brother, my sister, and I were the only kids that lived at the CCC camp.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. BOWERS: When the CCC’s came in there were recreation rooms, two barracks, and a mess hall. And what they'd do, they would go out and replace the trees that were cut down during the timber time.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you said this was 1936?
MR. BOWERS: That was 1936. And the reason I can recall it being 1936, I remember being in the second grade and would have to go to the blackboard, and I had to write the date down. Well, I knew it was in the 1900s, and when I wrote the one and I started with the nine, I said to myself, is it a nine or a six. Which way do you make it? As I stood there, finally the teacher, straightened me out. Niva, my teacher, by the way, married a CCC man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Virgil Chumney was an officer in the CCC. When they came in to the CCC camp, they were paid $30.00 a month plus room and board and clothing. That was the pay. I believe it was $30.00.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, so you lived at the CCC camp.
MR. BOWERS: I lived there. We were the only children. My Daddy worked directly for the Ranger, and my mother ran the switchboard some. The people that “manned” the towers would report fires and they would call the firemen out to battle the fire. It was very interesting growing up there. I watched them build the Ranger's house. While they were building it, we lived in three or four different places in the camp. In fact, where the administrative office was, we also lived in it. And then they moved us to another building that they moved out of. And then they built us a house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? Let me ask you a question.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you stay there until high school, or did you move to Oak Ridge from there?
MR. BOWERS: No, we stayed there until the CCC camp, when they came in, the men, they were marching, and my sister and I, we were sitting on the steps which were the Administrative Building, which that was our new house. And we could look out and you could see the snakes crawling out of the walls. When they came by our house, they were marching, marched them from Tellico, which is five miles. And they were singing, "When the Saints Go Marching In," and they came up there and they set them up and they gave them the barracks. They all had food. The CCC’s got people off of the streets that were starving.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: So that was the way life was then. A taxi would come to the CCC camp and take us to Tellico to school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And there were three families that lived up there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's get you to Oak Ridge. When did you move to Oak Ridge?
MR. BOWERS: First, we moved to Madisonville. I delivered papers. I knew everybody in town. I knew everybody in town in Tellico, also. It was a good town to grow up in. At the age of 11, I remember Pearl Harbor. We had blackouts, and scrap iron drives, and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how old were you in '41? How old were you --?
MR. BOWERS: In ‘41, I would have been 11 years old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So you were 11 when Pearl Harbor happened.
MR. BOWERS: Right. And it was some time after we moved to Madisonville. In fact, I drove when I was ten. When we lived at Tellico, during the Depression days, my mother operated the switchboard for the town of Tellico.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's get you to Oak Ridge. Let's move on to Oak Ridge.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did you move to Oak Ridge?
MR. BOWERS: We moved to Madisonville, we stayed there two years and we will get to Oak Ridge right now.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BOWERS: When we lived in Madisonville and I became 14 years old, I worked at the service station, and I also drove a taxi, and on one occasion I drove the police car in an emergency.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: So when I was there working at Monroe Service Station and the Hollywood Theaters across the street, I was so small that I would go up to get my ticket at the theater, and the cashier, Carolee Sloan, would give me a child's ticket. My first association with Oak Ridge was when a customer at the Service Station was wearing a Y-12 badge. I found out that he was an electrician in Oak Ridge. That was my first knowledge of Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now when was this? Was it when they were building Oak Ridge?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. But at that same time there was a train wreck in Jellico, Tennessee, a real bad train wreck. So this was on a Sunday. Two of my buddies, they were 16, and me were going to go see the train wreck. Well, what we did, they didn't know where they were going. I'm just a little squirt, and I just listened to the 16 year old’s, what they had to say. So we end up in Kingston, Tennessee. And we tried to find out where the train wreck was. Well, it was getting sort of late, and we were told how far it was, so we went back to Madisonville. But on the way back to Madisonville, there was a road which was Gallaher Road. And the two boys were talking, saying, "Now this place, Oak Ridge, now they've got the money." And one said, "They'll hire you if you're 16 years old. You can make $35.00 a week just being a messenger." Well, this was my second association with Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Daddy went to Oak Ridge to get a job. He had worked TVA the previous years at Appalachia Dam, Fort Loudon Dam, and Fontana Dam.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that? What year did he come to --?
MR. BOWERS: This would have been in 1943. Daddy was working at Fontana Dam. He quit and went to Oak Ridge. In fact, we spent Christmas in Fontana just before he went to Oak Ridge. Excuse me just a second to refresh my memory on dates.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.
MR. BOWERS: Daddy had an offer to go to Y-12 or K-25. Daddy and Mother stood at the central portal at Y-12, debating which company to go with. Now K-25 was operated by Union Carbide Company, and Y-12 was Tennessee Eastman. And so they debated and debated. Finally, Daddy said, "I think I'll go with Carbide." So then we were going to leave Madisonville and move to Oak Ridge. At the time, Daddy said, "Well, we're going to Oak Ridge," I was a sophomore in high school and my sister was a senior at Madisonville. We left my sister, Helen, to live with a friend in Madisonville for her to --
MR. MCDANIEL: Finish school.
MR. BOWERS: -- for her senior year. Well, we loaded up our belongings in our truck, and we traveled to Gallaher Road, where the entrance gate was at the Clinch River. I have never seen so much traffic, in and out, open trunks, opening people's cars, checking them out. And I thought, "Where in the world are we? What's going on?" We pulled up to a stop and Daddy gets out. Here I am, I just turned 14 years old, and the guard tells Daddy, "You can't go through here." These were Army soldiers manning the gates. Army 45’s on their side. So Daddy said, "Well, what do I do?" "You gotta go back down to Highway 70, and you got to go up to Farragut, and you gotta go across to Solway Bridge, and go through Solway Gate." And Daddy said, "Well, how far is that?" And the guard said, "About 50 miles." And that was back when gas was rationed, and Daddy told him, "Well, I don't have gas to go back that far." And so the guard said, "Well, I'll be back in a few minutes." Well, we sat and waited, my mother, my dad, and my brother. Finally, the guard came back and he said, "Well, we can take you. Okay."
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BOWERS: Here comes a military Jeep and a soldier gets out with a 45 on his side, and he said, "I want you to follow me."
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BOWERS: And so we go across the bridge, Gallaher Bridge. Now it's not far from there that you can see K-25.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: We didn't see K-25.
MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't?
MR. BOWERS: No. We go to the first turn and turn right, and he takes us around some -- I don't know what the route was. Had no idea where we were. We had a military escort. We came out on the Oak Ridge Turnpike which I don't know if you're familiar with Oak Ridge. It was Louisiana Avenue and the Oak Ridge Turnpike where a cafeteria and dormitories were located.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, of course.
MR. BOWERS: The cafeteria was where all the people living in the dormitories would go for their meals.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's on the corner of Louisiana and the Turnpike.
MR. BOWERS: Right. So then we go on and we go to a double trailer in Midtown Trailer Court, and where in the world are we? Never seen so much traffic. We go on to the trailer and we unload our truck, all our belongings. Tired, we go to sleep. Well, the next morning, I heard bulldozers going. I heard alarms. I heard police cars. I could hear alarms in Y-12 going off, and I thought, "Where in the world are we? What's going on?”
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BOWERS: So we had the double trailer to live in, and we had a community bathhouse. They had a man stationed in this bathhouse, as his job. I don't know how many days a week, but he was from down in Georgia, and he took care of the bathhouse.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, where was this?
MR. BOWERS: This was Midtown.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, Midtown, right in the middle of town.
MR. BOWERS: This today is where the Downtown Area, the Science Building, and the police station are. All this located area was trailers back in those days. Daddy said, “We're going to go to the cafeteria.” Well, there's a cafeteria in the trailer court, and in Oak Ridge, there were 75,000 people had moved into Oak Ridge overnight. 150,000 people working there. So we go down to the cafeteria, and we go in. A line of people waiting to be served. I was the first one in our family, and my brother, who was two years younger than me; he was the second one, followed by my mother, and then my Daddy. Well, there was a man in front of me at the cafeteria. All of a sudden, here's a man in street clothes, taps that man on the shoulder and pulls him out of the cafeteria line. And he said, "Where is your badge?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. BOWERS: And that man pulls a Prince Albert smoking tobacco can out, and he opens the can lid and he reaches in and pulls a handkerchief out, and he unfolds the handkerchief, and there was his badge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And the plain-clothes man, said, "You wear this at all times, everywhere you go." He said, "Yes, sir," and he stepped back in line, and we continued to go through the line.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now did you have your badge yet?
MR. BOWERS: Pardon?
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you have your badge yet?
MR. BOWERS: No. We had a temporary “pass”. We had to go to Badge and Pass Office. There was one in Midtown, and also one uptown at Townsite. Our badge had our picture on it, with age, height, and eye color on the back of the badge. My badge number, by the way, was 12789.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: We wore our badges that to school, everywhere you went, or you would be picked up by the guards. When we got up that morning, the first morning, there was Mr. Roy Rolands. He was the area supervisor at K-25, and he was there to greet us and see if we needed anything and told my Daddy, he said, "Now, I live over on Peach Road, right off Pennsylvania Avenue. You call me if you need anything." We met our neighbors. I remember the family that was next door. They were the Words. They were from Houston, Texas. And they had just moved in, too. They had two sons and a daughter, and one of them went to Oak Ridge High School. The other one was in junior high, and the little girl, I don't remember how old she was. The question was, when they got to talking, they were from Houston, and their neighbor was a movie star.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: In later life. His name was John Payne. I don't know if you remember him or not. He was a leading --
MR. MCDANIEL: No.
MR. BOWERS: -- in the movies back in the younger days. And, in fact, he used to baby-sit for them when he was a teenager, and before he went to California. I went to Oak Ridge High School enroll. However, I didn't have to enroll in Oak Ridge High School at that time because I had a week or two weeks off before they started the new semester at Oak Ridge High School.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? Sure.
MR. BOWERS: So it was so interesting to go into Oak Ridge High School. Everybody had badges. No one knew what your Daddy was doing. And I remember I was a sophomore. The rooms were crowded. In fact, they didn't have a desk for us.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: No. Dorothy Jean Waldrop, was our teacher, and what they did, they put four chairs at a table for the students. And the four that set at the table was J.C. Parker, William Sturgel, and Harold Cornett. And let's say. There was one other. I don't recall his name right now. But the next thing, this was 1945. When they dropped the atomic bomb, I remember we lived at 246 Robertsville Road.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you a question. Let me stop you right there --
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- and ask you a question. So you went there in the winter of '43 or '44?
MR. BOWERS: '44.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So you were there for a year and a half before the bomb was dropped.
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. And you were in high school during that time.
MR. BOWERS: I was sophomore in high school when we moved to Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. So you were a sophomore and junior. What was it like living there before you really knew what was going on?
MR. BOWERS: Well, it was just everywhere you went, you would see the signs, "What you see here, what you do here, when leave here, let it stay here. Be security-wise. Don't breathe." [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: But there were a lot of people, a lot of kids, a lot of students, so there were lots of recreational activities.
MR. BOWERS: Yes. All the roads in Oak Ridge were named after a State followed by a number. From the bus situation, buses were going everywhere, and I can still recall, I could tell you what number bus to get on if you wanted to go to New York Avenue. Number 1 was New York/Pennsylvania, and 2 was Florida/Michigan, and 3 was East Drive, and number 4 was Jefferson to Townsite that Central turned on, and then number 5 was Delaware and number 6 was Grove Center and number 7 California, number 8 was --
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. But you got on the bus and you all went all over town, didn't you?
MR. BOWERS: Well, yes, you see, in the beginning of Oak Ridge, the bus service was free, and then they started selling tokens and you could buy 5 for 30-cents. Most of the Oak Ridgers had experienced the Depression. Therefore, no one had money and everybody was in the same boat. We saw “stuff” coming into Oak Ridge and nothing going out.
MR. MCDANIEL: But what were some of the recreational activities that you did while you were in the --?
MR. BOWERS: Well, we had what was called the Wildcat Den. Shep Lauder was one of the originals, and Carl “Rabbit” Yearwood were both recreation people. And we had where the Wildcat Den is now; I guess y'all know where it is.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.
MR. BOWERS: But it was in two different places. At first, it was at the Uptown Site, known as Jackson Square. But then it moved -- the big cafeteria in Townsite folded up. The south end of the cafeteria they made the Wildcat Den, and the remaining part of the cafeteria building became Harvey's Furniture Store. Harvey was our Sunday School superintendent at the First Baptist Church.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: I knew Tom Harvey. He started out in the commercial area at Oak Ridge, and it was called XYZ in the beginning. There, they had the radio shop and you had O'Neil Dry Cleaners, and you had a delicatessen, and Spears Electric.
MR. MCDANIEL: But that was later on. That was later on.
MR. BOWERS: Well, my mother worked for Spears Electric.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, but I mean --
MR. BOWERS: She got a job the first --
MR. MCDANIEL: But that was after the war was over.
MR. BOWERS: No, this was during the war.
MR. MCDANIEL: During the war.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: My mother went to work the first month we were here and she was manager of Oak Ridge Radio Center.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. And there were five owners of the store, and they all worked in the plants. So what happened, my mother would be there to take the radios in to be repaired and she'd make the tickets and then when the owners came in at night, some of them worked different shifts, would do repairs on the radios. And so --
MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do activity-wise? Did you bowl? You mentioned something earlier about your first job was setting pins at the bowling alley.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, yes. In the very beginning when we --
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. BOWERS: -- we moved into the trailer court, I went down and -- this is something that I don't think there's too much known about, and I've never read it in any of the books or anything, but at Midtown, we had a theater. We had a barbershop. We had a supermarket. The Hamilton National Bank was there, one gas station. We had a bowling alley and a dance hall.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And I started setting pins there, and my brother, he did likewise. So what we would do, it's the old-fashioned pinsetters, where you'd manually set the pins. Never did get hit by any of the pins, but some of the bowlers could really throw a bowling ball. Well, anyway, between the bowling alley and the dance hall was a concession stand. And so what we would do, working there at the bowling alley, we'd go there and you'd have Cokes and everything there. And then they had the dance hall and the beer tavern and all that. So I remember once I left setting pins and didn't have a customer at that time. And so I go to get me a Coke, and I heard the noise going on, and I thought, "What in the world is happening?" Well, all of a sudden, there were soldiers. There were policemen. There were guards, and plain-clothes men. They were arresting a man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And what it was, someone had started to fight, and I remember he wanted to fight one of the soldiers, and let me tell you, he surrendered in a hurry.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'll bet he did.
MR. BOWERS: And back then, we didn't have a jail in Oak Ridge, and what they'd do, you'd have to take them to Clinton. And so they arrested him, put him in the car, and I remember what he had to say to that officer.
MR. MCDANIEL: What'd he say?
MR. BOWERS: Well, "You got the best of me."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: And the guard, he said, "I've only hit you one time." So that was the way the security was. We moved to Robertsville Road --
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, tell me about now when did you move out of the trailer park?
MR. BOWERS: Moved out of the trailer park 30 days later. In fact, I have a letter --
MR. MCDANIEL: 30 days later than what?
MR. BOWERS: We moved into the duplex at 246 Robertsville Road.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So how long were you at the trailer park?
MR. BOWERS: 30 days.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, you were just there 30 days.
MR. BOWERS: 30 days. But I have a letter right there, that's date January 1945, and it's a letter that my mother had written. And we were -- my mother said, "Well, we're now fifth on the list to get a house."
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: She said, "We were 17th on the list." So we moved to Robertsville Road. Back then, security was so tight, there was a police officer within one minute of your house 24 hours a day. Across the street from us was Robertsville School. Robertsville School was also used as a recreation gym. In fact, I would go over to the gym and play basketball. Let me tell you, you talk about athletes. They had the tops in the United States.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: These athletes, some of them, for example, were people who came to Oak Ridge for employment and they had jobs that allowed them to be exempt from the draft. We had chemists and all crafts. That's where Jack Case, who later became the Y-12 plant manager, became popular. You probably have read the story about “Jack Case”.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
MR. BOWERS: He came to Oak Ridge as a civilian. I played ball with Jack back in those days. I worked in just about every building at Y-12. The original Robertsville School was the gym, we played in. I took up with Carbide/K-25 team, and they would call me their mascot. Anyway, I was at all the games, and I would keep score. Mr. Hesler was head of recreation then, and he would run the time clock and I would help him.
MR. MCDANIEL: But every shift just about had a team, didn't they?
MR. BOWERS: They all had a team. Y-12 had one, and it was called Tennessee Eastman Carbide. We had Stone and Webster and Roane Anderson. And let me tell you, if you were a good ballplayer, they had a job for you.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet they did.
MR. BOWERS: So some of those players were -- well, for example, I don't know if y'all knew Mr. Joe Dykstra.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah.
MR. BOWERS: Joe was 6'9-1/2" tall Y-12, Tennessee Eastman was Albay Eddy. He was 6'9". And Roland Murphy, he was from Syracuse University, and Ray Catastke, he was from a university in North Carolina.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it Duke?
MR. BOWERS: No, it wasn't Duke.
MR. MCDANIEL: Chapel Hill?
MR. BOWERS: No.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. That's all right.
MR. BOWERS: Well, anyway, I'll think of it in a little while.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BOWERS: I still remember, Big Joe Dykstra, his number was Number 7, and Roland Murphy was 21, and we had one of them, you probably heard of, Arkie Bond. He played for the Army Cardinals.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: That was the military team. And Arkie was one of the best athletes that ever hit Oak Ridge, he and Elmo Wolf.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you're saying if you were a good athlete and you wanted a job at Oak Ridge, they'd find you a job.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, let me tell you. They all knew me. I don't know why I -- I just came in contact with all the guys. And the personnel manager said, "Hey, Bowers, you're here in Oak Ridge, Tennessee," he said, "You grew up here in Tennessee. Do you know any baseball pitchers?" And they said, "Got a job for 'em if you do." Well, one case, I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, and we were playing a Knoxville team. And like I said, I was on the bench. I took care of the bats. I was batboy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Or baseball? You were playing baseball at this time, baseball?
MR. BOWERS: This is baseball, yeah. I was in baseball and basketball. Went with them on all their trips. So this pitcher for Knoxville goes out to get a drink of water. This guy followed him out. And spoke to him and he said something to him. I guess he knew the man, and he said, "What are you doing now?" and he said, "Well, I'm not doing anything. I'm looking for a job." He said, "If you got a job, would you pitch for us?" and he said, "Yeah, I would." He said, "Well, be out at Elza Gate Monday morning.”
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow. I've never heard that story before. It makes a lot of sense.
MR. BOWERS: He went to work on the payroll Monday morning for Roane-Anderson.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And he played with Roane-Anderson. By the way, one of them I left out was Arkie Vaughn.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, you mentioned him.
MR. BOWERS: I mentioned Arkie? Arkie was defensive end for the Oklahoma Sooners.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. BOWERS: Now that's what a great athlete he was. And Arkie, also had a degree in chemistry.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, and he worked at X-10. But the K-25 team had the Army guys. There was Chuck Norton, and others. The Oak Ridge Manhattan Project always had money for recreation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now about when was this? Was this during the war, or after the war?
MR. BOWERS: This was during the war.
MR. MCDANIEL: During the war, okay.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. They dropped the bomb in '45, and I remember when I went home and people started running out of their houses and said, "We know what we've been making now." And it had been hush-hush all that time. Let me get back to the security, for example. The people that had lived next door to us, moved out, and when we moved in, we had a 50-foot water hose, and it was there in our yard. I was at Oak Ridge High School, and I went home this particular day, and I was going to wash the car. Well, I didn't see the water hose, and I thought, "Well, maybe Daddy let somebody borrow it or something." When Daddy got home, I said, "Daddy, do you know where our water hose is?" and he said, "Well, it's back there in the backyard, isn't it?" And I said, "Well, I can't find it." We went out there, no water hose. So I said, "Well, what are you gonna do?" and Daddy says, "Well, I don't know." And I said, "Well, I know what I'd do." I said, "I'd notify the police department."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: So Daddy, that's what he did. The policeman came to our house, took the information and all, and I thought, "We’ll never see our water hose." And about eight to ten days later, here comes the police officer to our house, and he said, "I know where your water hose is."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: He said, "One of the inspectors took your water hose that came to inspect the house next door." And said, he had taken a week's vacation in Gatlinburg and they had tracked him down and he had our water hose in the trunk of his car.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And he told my dad, he says, "Now here's his name, and you can prosecute him." And he said, "Your hose is up at the police station."
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I think that guy lost his job, didn't he?
MR. BOWERS: Then, I knew Security was everywhere in Oak Ridge, and it was something that we lived with. But it was a pleasure to grow up in Oak Ridge, and the people we met were highly educated people. Many had to move out on a short notice if they lost their job. But I remember one family couldn't move out, they lived down near K-25, because the law says you can't move a pregnant woman, and she was almost ready to have a baby.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: When it was time for her to deliver, the military came to her house and escorted her to Harriman Hospital.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And then they had to move out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, okay, so you graduated Oak Ridge High School.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir, I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I was the Class of '47, but I started working at the Grove Theater back when I was 16 years old. Really, when I applied for the job and they were going to hire me. I went to Recreation and Welfare, filled out my application, and they were going to hire me. Then I was told they weren't going to hire me. The lady said, "But you're not 16 years old. We can't hire you." I said, "But I am 16 years old." And so she put my birth date down again, and she said, "Well, yeah, you're 16 years old." She said, "Come on back up here." So I go back up there and I was supposed to be going to the Jefferson Theater to work, but since I didn't go down there, she said, "I'm gonna send you down to the Grove Theater." She said, "I think you'll like that."
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do there?
MR. BOWERS: I was a doorman, and, in fact, you can see the picture that I have when I was at the theater. I don't know if you've seen that or not. My wife -- I'm going to just break in just a second and she'll show you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. That'll be fine.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's not you in The Beginning of the End picture?
MR. BOWERS: That's me. I'm the doorman.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is it really?
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I've used that picture lots of times.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, I could tell you --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's him. Sure it is. [Laughs] So you worked at the Grove.
MR. BOWERS: I worked at the Grove, and I made 40 cents an hour, that's $16.00 a week, and Uncle Ed, who was the manager made $70.00 a week.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: I thought, "Man, that man is rich." [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: So you graduated high school.
MR. BOWERS: I graduated high school in '47. Now, I'd like to tell you something about the graduation.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. Yeah, take a minute or two to tell me about that.
MR. BOWERS: Okay. You want me to take a break?
MR. MCDANIEL: No, no. We're fine. Go ahead.
MR. BOWERS: Okay. Well, First Baptist Church met at the high school. And that's where we had our services all the time. And but when we had our baccalaureate sermon, they told the church that they had to have the auditorium. So what they did, I didn't know this at the time. Anyway, we go to the baccalaureate sermon, and this is a little embarrassing to me what happened, and it's something that was very embarrassing. And we had just got through with the baccalaureate sermon, and here we got that they were about to in the senior class, I don't know, there was a couple a hundred of us that just came out of the building. So we go down the halls at Oak Ridge High School, and we go down there. There was three or four of us, and we just went in there where the gym was, and at the baccalaureate sermon, they had done the music and one of the songs was, "My God and I." And so what we do, we go down there and we just opened the door there at the gym and we go in and we're sing, "My God and I," and what's going on? The First Baptist Church is having their Sunday night service.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And the preacher was preaching. And we go, "Oh." And so we bailed out. But no one told us that the church was there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Funny.
MR. BOWERS: That was where WATO radio station first started. We met in the auditorium at the Oak Ridge High School. And Theron Adkins. I don't know if you knew him or not. He also started his career at WATO and Ted Lehmann and others.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's stop for a second. I want to fix something.
[Technical background talk from 0:49:07 to 0:49:45]
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Go ahead.
MR. BOWERS: When we officially opened the gates, we had Jack Bailey as a guest. He had the radio show which was Queen for a Day.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Now you're talking about the day they opened the gates.
MR. BOWERS: The day we opened the gates.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was it? March, April 1949.
MR. BOWERS: '49, yes. And we had Rod Cameron as a guest, who was a movie star, and Jack Bailey, and we had the beauty queen, Marie McDonald. She was in the parade along with Bailey and Cameron, and there was a man by the name of Jimmy Burns. I knew him, and they hired him to be the chauffer for Marie.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir. So we have the celebration there at the Grove Theater, packed house. And so Marie came on stage. Of course, she got a big welcoming and then Jack Bailey was on. Then the last one on stage was Rod Cameron. Well, the first two, had already gone out the back door at the Grove Theater, and they got out of the crowd. Rod Cameron was the last on stage. Before Rod could get out and get in the getaway car, the crowd got out there --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: -- when he came out the stage door. And I remember, and I'm standing there and there Rod was. Some old boy wanted to fight him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And his girlfriend was there and I never will forget what Rod said to him. He said, "Well, I've been whipped by smaller men than you." [Laughs] And the man's girlfriend that was there, she said, "Act your age."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: She jumped onto him.
MR. MCDANIEL: How funny. That's funny.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. So you graduated high school.
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And then what did you do? Did you go to college? Did you go to work?
MR. BOWERS: I went to UT. When I went to UT, of course, I was staying at home, and I was in a carpool. There were five of us. I came out of UT one day, my brother-in-law and I, he became an engineer at Y-12, decided we would hitchhike to Oak Ridge. Along came this man -- well, he was a student at UT. He had another man with him that lived in Powell, Tennessee. We got to talking and he said, yeah, he drove over to UT every day and said, "Y'all are welcome. I'll pick you up, take you to school." His first name was Paul. I won't call his last name. His daddy's a big shot in X-10. And so, well, this was an almost-new DeSoto that he was driving. Our carpool now had two girls and three males. So back then, you had to have a badge to get out of Oak Ridge. So occasionally, one of the girls would forget her badge. So what we'd have to do, we'd let her out. She'd have to go to the guard headquarters that's there at the gate. And we'd just leave her.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: We didn't have time to wait because we would miss our first class, if we didn't go on. She'd have to catch a bus and come in late. Well, then Paul comes to my house, and I mean, we were raised in poverty back in those days. And he shows up at my house, in a brand new Lincoln, electric windows, “fully loaded”.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Three heaters, and that's what we drove to school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. And here I was just a poor boy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Just barely making it.
MR. BOWERS: And Paul was, man, he was -- his Daddy, financially, they were well off. They would call me Junior, and he'd say, "Hey, Junior. Have you got any spare time over at UT?" He said, "Would you take my car and go up to Lincoln Britton Motor Company and have it serviced for me?" And I'd say, "Yeah." And here I am just a little teenager driving that big 12-cylinder Lincoln. And we'd park down at the drug store every morning and have coffee. But it was interesting as we grew up. I've worked with so many. In my time, I spent 12-1/2 years in Biology; I worked on the Breeder Reactor, for 5-1/2 years until the government took our funds away from us. Biology had big plans. But the Vietnam War came along and our funds were taken away. So the Y-12 plant began to change.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you worked at all three plants, didn't you? All three sites.
MR. BOWERS: Well, not really K-25. I was at K-29 that was next door.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. But you worked at that site.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, I did. K-31, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now what did you do? What did you get your degree in?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I didn't get a degree. I went to UT for one year. When I worked at K-29, I worked in the time office in Payroll. And back then, we were in the Depression, and people coming from everywhere to get a job. You had to have a pass to get down to the Personnel Office.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you worked at all three sites, and then you retired. When did you retire?
MR. BOWERS: I retired January 1st, 1995.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1995?
MR. BOWERS: '95, uh-huh.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now when you were living in Oak Ridge, when you were working in Oak Ridge, were you married? Where did you meet your wife?
MR. BOWERS: Well --
MR. MCDANIEL: And where did you live?
MR. BOWERS: You see, her family attended church at First Baptist Church, which was held at the high school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And she was from Oak Ridge.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, uh-huh. And --
MR. MCDANIEL: As much as anybody. Nobody was “from” Oak Ridge, but she lived there.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, she and her family were from Florida. As I’ve stated, her brother and I used to hitchhike together and we were in a carpool together. So what happened, I'd go down to her brother’s house and study. She was quite a bit younger than me. Well, there's big difference in three or four years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: So when I came home from the Air Force four years later, she'd grown up.
MR. MCDANIEL: She'd grown up.
MR. BOWERS: So we started dating, and a year later, we got married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now you say when you came home four years later. Was that from --
MR. BOWERS: I was in the Air Force.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, yeah. When did you go in the Air Force?
MR. BOWERS: I went in the Air Force January 9th, 1950. Let's say -- '51.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And then you moved back in '55, or '50 --?
MR. BOWERS: When I came home, I got my job back at Y-12. But while I was in the Air Force, my seniority continued, and also my benefits that I was entitled to. They were good to me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, well, that's good.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went back and your friend's little sister had grown up.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: And y'all got married.
MR. BOWERS: We got married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where'd you live when you first got married?
MR. BOWERS: We moved to Tacoma Road, 177 Tacoma Road. Reeder Chevrolet Company was just across the Oak Ridge Turnpike from us. And we lived close to where they used to give driver license tests, and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Oh, yeah. Well, let me go back. When we move to Oak Ridge, I was just 15, and I drove the truck. And I got stopped by the cops once, at Midtown. That was where the library is now. And that was back when two policemen rode in a car together. And so they pulled me over. You see, I told you I started driving when I was ten years old. And I was driving a taxi when I was 14. So this is during the war when everybody was going off to the service and all. And I could handle trucks, cars, or tractors, or what have you. And I'd grease cars and I would always hope somebody'd come along and want a taxi. And if there was any car washing to do or polishing or what have you. I wanted the job
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: Well, I made all of $6.00 a week. Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you got stopped.
MR. BOWERS: I got stopped there at Midtown, and he asked to see my driver's license. Well, I didn’t have a driver's license.
MR. MCDANIEL: You didn't have one.
MR. BOWERS: So the two policemen were talking and I said, "What did I do for you to pull me over?" And he says, "You didn't do anything wrong." He said, "You just look young to be driving." And he said, "Do you have any money with you?" And I said, "Yes, sir, I do." Well, first, one of the cops says, "Well, just let him take the car and go on back home." And the other policeman says, "Well, we can't let him go. He doesn't have a driver's license." So he said, "Well," he said, "just lock the car up here and take the keys with you, and just ride the bus back home and let your Daddy come back and get the car."
MR. MCDANIEL: Drive the car?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah so that's what my dad did.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your dad say?
MR. BOWERS: Well, he just went down there and got it.
MR. MCDANIEL: He just got it?
MR. BOWERS: But back then, I remember -- well, it seemed that I knew everybody in Oak Ridge. I knew a lot of the medical staff, I knew some of the people that ran the city, like Major Bonnet. You had to go “through” Major Bonnet. He was the man that said who got a concession in Oak Ridge. He's the one that told you it's time to go. By the way, concessions had to pay a percentage of their profits to the United States government.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. Anyway, this buddy of mine, he was older than me, and this was a Sunday afternoon, we decided that we wanted to go target practicing. So he and my brother and I get in the car, and we go out Oliver Springs Gate. We show our badge. So then, we go down to the foot of the hill, and there's another road. And so we drive down this road, and there was an old house dilapidated and deserted. Little wide place in the road. So we just pulled over, got out, and started target shooting.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: And the next thing I knew, there comes two security men, guards, with guns.
MR. MCDANIEL: With guns, right.
MR. BOWERS: Uniforms. I mean they were sharp. And I don't know if you know, but this is what the old country boys call it. I don't know if you ever heard the term or not, beggar lice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BOWERS: That sticks to your clothes and all.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course.
MR. BOWERS: Those two officers were covered. They had come through the briars and --
MR. MCDANIEL: And they were covered with beggar lice.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. So they told us that, "Didn't you see the signs?" "Well, what signs? We didn't see any signs out here." There wasn't any sign. And there was no sign saying it's government property. So, they take us down to the guard headquarters. Well, Glen was the oldest one of our group, and they call in a lieutenant, "Got these boys here." I wasn't scared. However, about, oh, I don't know 25 to 30 years later, this “Glen” I was telling you about?
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: Was visiting me here in this house and he was telling me about an episode that happened when he was at Oak Ridge High, and the guards -- he said, "They picked me up and the other two guys that was with me." He said, "I don't remember their names." And I said, "Well, right here's one of 'em, and my brother was the other." And he said, "Well, they took us down to the guard station and the officer came in and start talking." And he said, "You're the oldest. We're gonna hold you responsible."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. But I asked Glen, I said, "Glen?" And he said he was scared to death. And I said, "Well, did you notice I wasn't scared." He said, "Well," he said, "I was scared. I didn't know." And you know what I was going to do?
MR. MCDANIEL: What?
MR. BOWERS: I was going to call his boss. [Laughs]
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: He was head of the whole guard department.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness.
MR. BOWERS: I went to church with his boy, and we just had our Sunday night social at his house.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: But they just said, well, we didn't do anything, and said, "Well, you boys just go on back home." He said, "Just tell your Daddy to come get the guns."
MR. MCDANIEL: Hey, let me ask you a question, and we're going to wrap this up here in a little bit.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Since that's you in that photograph, you're the --
MR. BOWERS: Doorman.
MR. MCDANIEL: -- the doorman at the Grove Theater. Can you tell me about that night that they had the premier of that movie, The Beginning of the End?
MR. BOWERS: Let's see now. Did I tell you about Rod Cameron?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes, you told me about that.
MR. BOWERS: And about the -- okay. That night --
MR. MCDANIEL: That wasn't the same night, was it?
MR. BOWERS: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, it was?
MR. BOWERS: That was the night when we had the opening of the gates.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's when you had the opening of the gates. They had the premier of that film.
MR. BOWERS: Yes, sir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I didn't know that.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah, that was on the marquee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly. So well, my goodness. Well, anything else you want to talk about? We need to kind of wrap things up here a little bit.
MR. BOWERS: Oh, well, there's some --.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure there's a lot.
MR. BOWERS: -- some good times I had. I just experienced something in life that you never would dream. Oh, you talk about Oak Ridge High School. We'll get back to that. Back then, it was nothing but mud and boardwalks. And down where Robertsville Baptist Church is now, that used to be an old farmhouse, and they had a grassy yard. And Mr. Bond was the principal of Robertsville School at that time, Mr. Bond and I dug up the sod out of that old farmhouse, and I carried mine down to 246 Robertsville Road and we were the only house that had a green lawn.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs]
MR. BOWERS: And Mr. Bond took his sod to his house. But, oh, let's see. Back to the theater.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's all right. That's fine. You've told some good stories here.
MR. BOWERS: I'll tell you one other thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, tell me one more story.
MR. BOWERS: Something I was proud to do. That was, take the polygraph test at work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. When did you --
MR. BOWERS: We did that during the war, and a lot of my co-workers would dread going to take that test.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did they do that?
MR. BOWERS: Well, I know I took it in 1951, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: At the plants, right.
MR. BOWERS: They --
MR. MCDANIEL: Was it just random, or was there a reason?
MR. BOWERS: No, everybody -- this was for security reasons. And when I had to go take the test, a lot of people didn't really want to do it, and I said, "Well, I'm glad to do that."
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BOWERS: "Well, I think it's an honor that my country trusts me and I'm here for whatever security's supposed to be, and I'm for it." But I'd like to get back to my dad.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah. Let's take just a minute. We don't have much time left.
MR. BOWERS: Okay. This pertains to K-25.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, sure.
MR. BOWERS: We came in, my buddy, and I -- and by the way, he was a photographer and he used to work -- did photographs, develop hundreds of rolls of film a day. Back then, there was only one photo finishing plant, and it was in Oak Ridge, and 75,000 people living here, and we picked up film in Clinton and Oliver Springs. Cameras were “outlawed” in Oak Ridge. I had came in this night and I parked my car -- my dad was asleep. And the next morning, my dad got up to go to work, and the car we drove in was sort of in his way, so he tried to turn his car around in the back of the yard. And when he did, he backed up and his tailpipe went into the earth.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And bent it all down and there he is, he's got to go to K-25. And he tried to straighten his tailpipe up so he could get to work, and he was about to run late. Do you know that was the day he was scheduled to take the polygraph test?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And Daddy went to take the polygraph test and the person that was giving it asked him, "Do you feel all right?" That machine went crazy!
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? He was all tore up.
MR. BOWERS: And she said, "Well, Mr. Bowers, you go to work," and she said, "You come back tomorrow." So he came back and he passed his test. But --
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, that's good. Well, Mr. Bowers, I appreciate you taking time to talk with us.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: It's been great. You've told some great stories, and it's a privilege to talk to somebody who was there at the very beginning and has such a good memory for the details of what happened back then. So I appreciate it so much. So thank you.
MR. BOWERS: Well, I've enjoyed reminiscing and bringing back old times and memories. And the people that I grew up with and associated with, it was a good life. Lot of us, we griped, and when you'd have to go get passes for people and all. But when it came time to open the gates, the people didn't want it to be open.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly. That said something about the town and the people that lived there.
MR. BOWERS: The town. Well, there's one Coach Martin, I may want to tell you.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. One more story. That's it. That's all we got time for.
MR. BOWERS: Coach Benny Martin --
MR. MCDANIEL: Sit back in your chair.
MR. BOWERS: -- he was the second coach of Oak Ridge. The first one, he just lasted just a few months, and he was drafted into the Army, and Coach Martin took over his job. Coach Martin was my first gym teacher --
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: -- at Oak Ridge High School. Benny was a jewel. Benny was from the University of Kentucky. That's where we got the name of the Oak Ridge Wildcats.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yeah. So Benny was also basketball coach, football coach, and back then the government funded the money for sports. They had money. Even they had boxing, which I didn't approve of. They outlawed that pretty quick. So Benny was the champion free-throw shooter in Oak Ridge for the two years that I was there with him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And back then, they shot granny style.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: Yes. And I thought when I was there with old Big Joe Dykstra, and Joe would go out on the basketball court and he'd shoot it granny style. I'm just 15 years old, and I said, "That's not the way to shoot a basketball." And so Coach Martin, was there in the gym, and we were talking, and like I say, he was the champion Oak Ridge shooter in free throws. And I said, "Coach," I said, "That's not the proper way to shoot a basketball." 15 year old telling his coach.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BOWERS: He said, "Well, Bowers, how do you think it should be shot?" I said, "Well, I think it should be shot like this." And he said, "Why do you say that?" I said, "Well, look. When you shot it like this, look how close you are to the rim." Now, back then UT shot granny style. University of Kentucky shot granny style.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BOWERS: And he said, "Well, no, this is the proper way to shoot it." And I said, "Well, get the basketball, Coach." He got one and I got one, and we were there shooting basketball. He'd shot his granny style, and I'd shoot mine like that. I said, "Coach, you shoot closer to the rim." I said, "When you shoot granny style, you gotta go down here and bring it up and loop it, and then come back down." And you know when we got through shooting what he told me?
MR. MCDANIEL: What'd he say?
MR. BOWERS: Don't change.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughs] Well, that's great. That's a great story. That's a great story.
MR. BOWERS: But now did you ever know P.B. Smith?
MR. MCDANIEL: No, huh-uh.
MR. BOWERS: He was a coach there. He was an assistant coach under Coach Martin. John M. Smith was his name.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, I didn't know him.
MR. BOWERS: And we'd always meet in the coaches' office every morning. I always got there real early. I drove to school, by the way. And Mr. Smith was always in there and he was always talking about -- he was from Arkansas. And he would always talk about when he was at Pine Bluff, we did it this way and he'd do it that way. Well, this particular morning I go into the coach's office and I sit down. Mr. Smith wasn't there. I looked around at the guy sitting in there. They were football players and all, and I said, "Well where's P.B.?" And they said, "P.B.? Who's P.B.?" I said, "Pine Bluff Arkansas Smith." That’s how he got that name and in the annual and everything, it's listed, "John M. P.B. Smith."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? All right. Well, Mr. Bowers, I appreciate you taking time.
MR. BOWERS: Okay.
MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you so much.
MR. BOWERS: Yeah.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s note: This transcript was edited at Mr. Bower’s request. The corresponding audio and video portions remain unchanged.]